FAA policy on electronics during flight to likely change before 2014

NYT talks to anonymous sources involved in the analysis and planning.

Last year, the FAA went on the record with New York Times Bits Blog writer Nick Bilton and said they'd take a "fresh look" at their policies regarding electronic device usage during take-off and landing. This year Bilton is in touch with the powers that be again, and he reports everyone's favorite flight procedure will likely change before 2014.

"According to people who work with an industry working group that the Federal Aviation Administration set up last year to study the use of portable electronics on planes, the agency hopes to announce by the end of this year that it will relax the rules for reading devices during takeoff and landing," Bilton wrote.

Bilton's sources had to remain anonymous due to policies that prohibit commenting on internal discussions, but he identified them as an FAA official and one member of a working group analyzing the current device situation. This working group is made up of individuals from a variety of industries: Amazon, the Consumer Electronics Association, Boeing, the Association of Flight Attendants, the Federal Communications Commission and aircraft makers, according to Bilton. They first met in January and plan to introduce findings by July 31.

The potential for change on this front has sparked some politicians to get involved with the FAA. Bilton spoke with Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) who said she'd introduce legislation to hold the organization accountable (her own frustrations stemming from iPads being used by flight personnel). And FCC chairman Julius Genachowski notably sent the FAA advocating for more electronics on planes.

If it feels like deja vu, Bilton's "fresh look" report came out almost exactly one year ago. Then, Laura J. Brown, the FAA's deputy assistant administrator for public affairs at the time, remained somewhat vague in her responses. So although this newest development comes from the word of anonymous sources, there is apparently a definite timeframe in place. Whether or not a change to flight device usage is even a good thing, it feels inevitable that something will happen.

69 Reader Comments

Good to see some forward progress (or at least rumored forward progress). You would think that the airline companies would also be happy about this, since any annoyance eliminated, no matter how small, is more money for them.

At long last. Everyone just flips their devices back on as soon as the steward has passed anyway. This should have happened ten years ago. I've done a lot of flying, and have yet to see a cell phone or a Game Boy create a problems, much less a Kindle with about as much battery drain as a watch.

Just please, please, don't let people use their phones on flights. Crying babies and loud engines are bad enough, but asshats screaming banalities over them would be unbearable - on already unbearable flights as they are >_<

Just please, please, don't let people use their phones on flights. Crying babies and loud engines are bad enough, but asshats screaming banalities over them would be unbearable - on already unbearable flights as they are >_<

There isn't likely to be any cellular service in the air. I suppose you could use VoIP services, but technically you already can on flights with Wi-Fi.

Just please, please, don't let people use their phones on flights. Crying babies and loud engines are bad enough, but asshats screaming banalities over them would be unbearable - on already unbearable flights as they are >_<

There isn't likely to be any cellular service in the air. I suppose you could use VoIP services, but technically you already can on flights with Wi-Fi.

There are already some in-flight cell services being tested - United Emirates/Delta/Virgin - I'm just hoping that with the loosening of restrictions in general, that at least they'll keep cell services reigned in.

Just please, please, don't let people use their phones on flights. Crying babies and loud engines are bad enough, but asshats screaming banalities over them would be unbearable - on already unbearable flights as they are >_<

There isn't likely to be any cellular service in the air. I suppose you could use VoIP services, but technically you already can on flights with Wi-Fi.

There are already some in-flight cell services being tested - United Emirates/Delta/Virgin - I'm just hoping that with the loosening of restrictions in general, that at least they'll keep cell services reigned in.

Yeah, I don't want to be surrounded by people talking on the phone either

During my last flight, I was struck by the insanity of a policy that bans me from using my Kindle during takeoff, whereas the guy next to me is free to take up half my personal space by reading a broadsheet newspaper. The fact that his arms were basically in my face during takeoff is surely much more dangerous than a tiny electromagnetic impulse from switching the page on the Kindle.

At least I could use the visual shield offered by his newspaper to hide the fact that I sneaked my Kindle back out as soon as the flight attendant walked away.

Just please, please, don't let people use their phones on flights. Crying babies and loud engines are bad enough, but asshats screaming banalities over them would be unbearable - on already unbearable flights as they are >_<

You already can? Phones on planes aren't new technology. But it's expensive, so no one does it.

Why do I have the feeling that this has little to do with magnetic interference and a lot to do with money.

If the carriers found a way to figure you're calling from a plane and overcharge you for the service they would have unleashed their lobbyists and put unbearable pressure on Congress to do away with the restrictions.

I'm not really for or against this, but honestly I have never understood peoples problem with this. Of all the crap you have to deal with shutting off your stuff for a few minutes is nothing. For that matter if there's a point that something is going to go wrong with a flight its probably going to be during takeoff and landing. So the last thing you really need is someone fumbling with their shit and getting in the way when you're trying to evacuate a plane. Trust me there are idiots that will.

"Reading device"??? What the hell is that?Is a Kindle a reading device? What about a Kindle Fire? Then, what about an iPad? A MS Surface? Just the RT one? Or maybe the Pro without keyboard? What if I read on my laptop's screen? Or on my iPhone, or phablet?

Analysts and now the FAA keep trying to categorize consumer electronics devices. It's pointless! It's not like there's a law specifying how to design these devices and what specs they must adhere to (that's what Intel's Ultrabook certification is for).

So thank you FAA for making these arbitrary distinctions that will be confusing at first, and obsolete soon after.

PS: Amazon in the working group... No wonder "reading devices" are singled out.

It's similar in hospitals. When I worked at one, I would have respected the ban on cell phones there ('due to sensitive medical equipent' or some such) if not for the fact that other personnel there would use cordless phones. I guess they're also just in it for the money! Money they earn with their own expensive day-to-day plans, that is.

"Reading device"??? What the hell is that?Is a Kindle a reading device? What about a Kindle Fire? Then, what about an iPad? A MS Surface? Just the RT one? Or maybe the Pro without keyboard? What if I read on my laptop's screen? Or on my iPhone, or phablet?

Analysts and now the FAA keep trying to categorize consumer electronics devices. It's pointless! It's not like there's a law specifying how to design these devices and what specs they must adhere to (that's what Intel's Ultrabook certification is for).

So thank you FAA for making these arbitrary distinctions that will be confusing at first, and obsolete soon after.

PS: Amazon in the working group... No wonder "reading devices" are singled out.

Well if your going to take the name "Reading device" literally than your talking about a OCR Reading Pen like this. http://goo.gl/RwqFe So in that case the FAA has been discriminating against disabled people. OMG!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i! DOWN WITH THE FAA. :-)

Why do people care so much about others using the cell phone in the air? They have this in Europe and the Middle East. Guess what? When was the last time you heard someone complaining about loud passengers?

The service is technically qualified as roaming, since it connects to a 3G GSM microcell on board the aircraft, and its around €1 per minute and 25-50 cents per text. So it's unlikely you're going to sit next to Chatty Cathy in cattle class on Southwest because she couldn't stomach the $15 bill for 15 minutes of yapping.

For what it's worth, the flight crew is not supposed to be using iPads during takeoff and landing, either. While an attendant sneaking an iPad out during takeoff might imply the safety of the technology, it doesn't mean the pilot is going to have one out while climbing to 32,000 feet. A pilot's iPad replaces several pounds of manuals and paperwork, and will be stowed for much of the flight. I think Madam Senator is dramatizing a bit.

The comments about trying to keep everyone's heads up in case of emergency do resonate. It's bad enough trying to order a sandwich or get off an elevator behind someone staring at their phone. Just imagine if they're trying to tweet about making a crash landing while you're trying to evacuate; it seems dishearteningly plausible. But is it worth contriving a story about flight system interference? Is it worth adding to the ever-growing list of rules at all? Absent any reason to care besides my own indignance, I'd just as soon keep reading on my phone or iPad, hope for the best, and deal with someone clogging the exit if and when the time ever comes.

I find the electronics ban incredibly annoying. It isn't just 10 minutes between takeoff and 20,000 feet. It is all of that time on the runway. That can last an hour easily. Is it the end of the world? No, but it would be nice if I didn't have to put my book away just because it puts out a pathetically small EM field. Hell, it isn't even like anyone actually turns off their tablets. They just turn off the screen.

Frankly, I don't want to fly on an airplane that doesn't have its electronics hardened enough to take a couple of extra screens being on. The real lie that there is any safety risk was put to bed when they slap a fucking TV into the back of every single seat, and those stupid TVs fight your every attempt to turn them off. Somehow, despite all of the TVs, the airplane doesn't explode.

Just make a reasonable policy. If there exists equipment that is actually hurt by a plan full of tablets, fix the freaking components. If your plane can't handle a few tablets, everyone is going to die if it goes anywhere near a charged cloud. Don't try and enforce the unenforceable. I'm fine with a cellphone ban, but I should be able to read a god damn electronic book.

As to people citing a safety concern, grow up and get a grip on what is a real danger in your life. The chances of getting harmed during takeoff and landing are so vanishingly small that your mind can't wrap around it. You are far more likely to be killed choking on the snacks they serve than some emergency on the runway. Only a coward or an idiot would keep people from reading on their tablet due to some insanely small elevation of risk. If you want to be a coward and white knuckle the arm rest the whole time, that is cool, just do it quietly and don't involve me in your cowardice.

I'm not really for or against this, but honestly I have never understood peoples problem with this. Of all the crap you have to deal with shutting off your stuff for a few minutes is nothing. For that matter if there's a point that something is going to go wrong with a flight its probably going to be during takeoff and landing. So the last thing you really need is someone fumbling with their shit and getting in the way when you're trying to evacuate a plane. Trust me there are idiots that will.

Speaking as a parent, toddlers hate being cooped up, and iPads make great pacifiers. I know that sounds terrible, but would you prefer a screaming kid behind you?

Expect any delay to be attributed to the sequester. After all, we are shutting down airports, why would we wast money on reviewing denying people of their smartphones for 10 minutes after takeoff and before landing.

As to people citing a safety concern, grow up and get a grip on what is a real danger in your life. The chances of getting harmed during takeoff and landing are so vanishingly small that your mind can't wrap around it. You are far more likely to be killed choking on the snacks they serve than some emergency on the runway. Only a coward or an idiot would keep people from reading on their tablet due to some insanely small elevation of risk. If you want to be a coward and white knuckle the arm rest the whole time, that is cool, just do it quietly and don't involve me in your cowardice.

I never implied fear or cowardice. I know the chances of something going wrong are insanely small. In-fact as twisted as it may sound I kind of enjoy flights. I was attempting to state the one redeeming quality of the FAA's current stance on the matter.

If the ten extra seconds you took to stow your kindle made me fail to reach the emergency exit in time and die in a fireball after one of the engines swallowed a bird, I'd be pissed.

This is a dumb argument. How many plane crashes are there in the first world where some of the people onboard survive? It's generally a minor accident, like sliding off a runway, where everyone is fine, or plunging to your doom. In neither case would being able to stow an electronic device make a difference.

And if it really was critically important that people be able to evacuate quickly, should we ban old people and children from flying? What about fatties? Yes, let's restrict flying to 16-49 year olds in good shape and with a BMI below 25, in the exceedingly unlikely event that one of the engines catches fire on the ground and we need to quickly evacuate.

I'm not really for or against this, but honestly I have never understood peoples problem with this. Of all the crap you have to deal with shutting off your stuff for a few minutes is nothing. For that matter if there's a point that something is going to go wrong with a flight its probably going to be during takeoff and landing. So the last thing you really need is someone fumbling with their shit and getting in the way when you're trying to evacuate a plane. Trust me there are idiots that will.

This is a dumb argument. How many plane crashes are there in the first world where some of the people onboard survive? It's generally a minor accident, like sliding off a runway, where everyone is fine, or plunging to your doom. In neither case would being able to stow an electronic device make a difference.

Just because you only slid off a runway doesn't mean you don't need to evacuate quickly. See Air France Flight 358. Not that I necessarily agree that holding a Kindle is going to inhibit people from doing that.

Tablet users will be no more distracted than someone reading a paperback, doing a crossword puzzle, reading the inflight magazine, or staring at the flight attendant's ass. It's more likely that someone reading this thread will hurt themselves from laughing so hard at the somersaults people are going through to try to show tablets are a danger, than that anyone will get hurt on a plane because of "tablet-specific distraction".

Now that I've gotten that off my chest, there are two proposed aspects I would suggest will probably end up part of the regulation:

1) Size/weight limit: A Kindle really isn't any more dangerous in the cabin than a book. But do you really want someone's lapzilla flying around the cabin in case of a heavy landing?

2) Use will remain subject to pilot's discretion: There have been documented cases of poorly manufactured or malfunctioning devices putting out so much interference that it is noticed in the cockpit. The interference has never been enough to be dangerous in-and-of itself, but airplane safety is based on backups of backups. If one of the instruments is experiencing even mild interference, you may have eliminated one of those backups.

EDIT: The documented cases are, indeed, rare. But they do exist. I'm just suggesting that the pilot have discretion to act if one of those rare cases occurs.

I find the electronics ban incredibly annoying. It isn't just 10 minutes between takeoff and 20,000 feet. It is all of that time on the runway. That can last an hour easily.

Some short hop spoke flights in the system don't ever clear cruising altitude - flights that can take over an hour.I think you can use electronics for about 2 minutes on Huntsville <-> Atlanta. Which can be up to an hour.

I'm thinking this is a need step forward but I'd be even more excited if, and I don't know if the FAA has the authority to make the call on this one, they managed to get rid of/scale back the TSA. Goddamnit, human *flight* is supposed to wonderous not a freakin' chore!

It's similar in hospitals. When I worked at one, I would have respected the ban on cell phones there ('due to sensitive medical equipent' or some such) if not for the fact that other personnel there would use cordless phones. I guess they're also just in it for the money! Money they earn with their own expensive day-to-day plans, that is.

I've a network engineer friend who spent months convincing his hospital management bozos to disallow 900mhz phones in hospitals. Any hospital you encounter using cordless 900mhz phones either hasn't had the risks adequately explained to them by their IT department or doesn't have management that listens to their engineers who know what they're talking about (your case, apparently).

The horror stories at that hospital with management vs. the IT department are...horrifying. It makes me feel like asking for some backwater, no tech place if I ever need surgery.

I really think all this bureaucratic idiocy and debate about what's safe or not safe on a flight would go away if people could actually trust the FAA and/or FCC to make decisions based on solid facts. It's a shame that trust is almost non-existent.

Really, it's not that hard to get a few spectrum and aeronautical engineers in a room to come up with some solid parameters and it wouldn't be that hard to relate those parameters and the resulting safety rules to the public in a trustworthy, fact-based way. Instead we have restrictions where we need none and free-rein in other ways that are pretty alarming.

Hence, no real trust in the regulatory bodies responsible for making rational decisions based on solid reasoning and coherent risk management.

I'm a helicopter pilot and I can attest that WiFi radios definitely seem to interfere with aviation frequencies. It's probably a fairly minor thing, since even with the transmitter held close to the antenna the problem seemed intermittent, but it is definitely annoying and will certainly drown out anything else that antenna might be picking up.

It took quite a while to pin down what the problem was as well, since no one thought that something that was transmitting in the 2.4GHz range would interfere with something transmitting and receiving in the 120ish MHz range. We isolated everything though, and various WiFi radios were definitely the culprit.

What are the chances they will admit "There actually never was any risk with consumer electronic devices endangering airplanes. Sorry guys, our bad."

More a factor of "there was once risk, small but significant, but with modern advances in both airplane tech and consumer electronic tech it has been reduced to an acceptable level."

marcoskirsch wrote:

"Reading device"??? What the hell is that?Is a Kindle a reading device? What about a Kindle Fire? Then, what about an iPad? A MS Surface? Just the RT one? Or maybe the Pro without keyboard? What if I read on my laptop's screen? Or on my iPhone, or phablet?

Analysts and now the FAA keep trying to categorize consumer electronics devices. It's pointless! It's not like there's a law specifying how to design these devices and what specs they must adhere to (that's what Intel's Ultrabook certification is for).

So thank you FAA for making these arbitrary distinctions that will be confusing at first, and obsolete soon after.

PS: Amazon in the working group... No wonder "reading devices" are singled out.

I think one reason the "reading devices" get singled out is that, at least by my understanding, some like the Kindle simply can't be turned off. The only difference between use and stowing is that you're not turning pages.

I find the electronics ban incredibly annoying. It isn't just 10 minutes between takeoff and 20,000 feet. It is all of that time on the runway. That can last an hour easily. Is it the end of the world? No, but it would be nice if I didn't have to put my book away just because it puts out a pathetically small EM field. Hell, it isn't even like anyone actually turns off their tablets. They just turn off the screen.

I turn mine off, FWIW. Saves the battery life.

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Frankly, I don't want to fly on an airplane that doesn't have its electronics hardened enough to take a couple of extra screens being on. The real lie that there is any safety risk was put to bed when they slap a fucking TV into the back of every single seat, and those stupid TVs fight your every attempt to turn them off. Somehow, despite all of the TVs, the airplane doesn't explode.

So are those TVs off the shelf models, or were they designed to minimize EMI? Do you know?

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Just make a reasonable policy. If there exists equipment that is actually hurt by a plan full of tablets, fix the freaking components. If your plane can't handle a few tablets, everyone is going to die if it goes anywhere near a charged cloud. Don't try and enforce the unenforceable. I'm fine with a cellphone ban, but I should be able to read a god damn electronic book.

Hurgle burgle. When you have various pieces of equipment flying everything from transoceanic routes to short hops between East Podunk and West Podunk, you can't just "fix the freaking equipment." There's a lot of equipment, and we shouldn't upgrade everything in the world so you can read your "god damn electronic book."

Also, I think anybody who hasn't dealt extensively with electronics (including older electronics) really understands how easy it is for interference to get coupled and carried across various lines, either affecting performance or just throwing noise into cockpit communications systems.

Quote:

As to people citing a safety concern, grow up and get a grip on what is a real danger in your life. The chances of getting harmed during takeoff and landing are so vanishingly small that your mind can't wrap around it. You are far more likely to be killed choking on the snacks they serve than some emergency on the runway. Only a coward or an idiot would keep people from reading on their tablet due to some insanely small elevation of risk. If you want to be a coward and white knuckle the arm rest the whole time, that is cool, just do it quietly and don't involve me in your cowardice.

Let's not forget that crashing planes can affect those that chose not to fly...you know, they do hit the ground eventually, and people might be down there.

And your "hurf durf" cowardice argument is easily countered with the "hurf durf" selfishness argument. Is a half hour or even an hour away from your Kindle so important to you that it's worth even a marginal elevation of risk to hundreds of people?

To you, of course it is. Others may not feel the same way. Welcome to society. Don't like it? Buy a plane of your very own.

Every plane that goes into commercial service is already required to pass FAA tests to make sure that electronic devices won't interfere with anything. There are similar more general FCC regulations that have to be passed (non-airplane specific.) It's no use arguing it technically, the FAA already knows there's no risk. Airlines have been working with them extensively to get sign-off for flight staff to carry electronic devices. The commonly tossed out excuse of wanting people to pay attention to the flight attendants instructions is also nonsense because they don't make you put down that Skymall catalog.

Just accept that they're changing it rather than force them to manufacture excuses for why they haven't done it sooner.